


see everything eternal

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Aftercare, Dubious Consent, F/M, Other, Soul Sex, and the distance that comes after that, enemies to friendly enemies, playing fast and loose with canon states of the soul and proper uses of hearts, talking in circles, the furthest the characters can push truth while being completely honest, what do you call it if everyone gets some of what they want but not all from each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:39:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: As we were forged, we shall return perhaps somedayI will remember us and wonder who we werethere are other ways to even the scales. know an enemy. kill with only kindness.
Relationships: Ardbert/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Elidibus/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> in some order:  
>  \- to the people that beta'd this and tolerated my chatter about this beast: you are absolute delights, i love you, i owe you.  
>  \- the smut is in chapter 2.  
>  \- please heed the tags. while there are chances given to either back down or agree to do things at various moments, and everyone does wind up on the same page and agreeing to the things being done, i cannot in good faith skip the consent warnings wrt souls having riders that agree to stuff, some degree of manipulation that everyone thinks they're having an upper hand for, and twisted forms of loneliness.

It isn’t quite an ambush, being as it is in broad daylight and in one of the Crystarium’s noisy streets. People have begun to withdraw from the city in slow drips, but those that do not still find ways to take their leisure. Those that yet cannot gather around those soon to leave, eager and wanting their own story.

None have more than the Warrior of Light. Save, perhaps, herself. So she wants to believe, despite knowing better. At the very least, Ardbert has been alive a hundred-odd years, has known the realm before the Flood.

At the most, there is Anamnesis. There are the ghostly steps by her side, a flicker of sunlight and the glint of cleaned armor, ash-bitter and all too aware that if he’s lived for a hundred-odd years, the Warrior of Light has known far, far more.

But he is not immune to the disorientation of many eager adventurers, awaiting instructions and wisdom and something to send them on the road again. He is not immune to the pleasant warmth of the afternoon that invites words to keep flowing and attention to keep wandering, when so much asks for it. The Warrior of Light’s voice carries easily- and idly, Ardbert wonders if that is how he sounded too, when they met, Ravana’s corpse dissolving behind his friends and the buzzing of Lost Ast Gnath dimming before the Echo in their ears- so he’s easy to find before he finds them. Now, at least.

She approaches without pretense. Weaves between a couple of adventurers, raises her voice to get another to move. The Warrior of Light takes notice, attention leaving the man asking him if there were truly lands beyond Kholusia’s sea, and landing on her. She has forgone her weapon, not that she needs it; her soul pulls taut as Ardbert circles around, drifting through and between the crowd to wait on his other side.

To his credit, Elidibus doesn’t startle. The jovial expression is frozen, the reaction not quite reaching his eyes. So surrounded, he cannot simply drop the ruse, and yet she pushes it more. Hand raised, fingers closed in a loose fist. 

“Do not tell me you have forgotten,” drips from her mouth, her own grin fanged and tight. Waiting, She catches the eye of an impossible heat-haze off of Elidibus’ shoulder, and takes one step forward. 

One of Elidibus’ hands is held out. He was gesturing, motions wide and sweeping to hide that he might not know all the details of Norvrandt- and after a hundred-odd years, death and life, no adventurer could blame him- and now he is frozen. Her knuckles find the back of his hand, tapping with the lightest possible touch.

Behind him, Ardbert grins at the confused expression, quick as it is to vanish.

“I did not expect you to also seek me out,” and there is an odd leading edge to his voice. Not confusion but dismissal, that they couldn’t have come to the conclusion he would be worth finding. Not as he is, surrounded by fresh Blessed. “I somehow expected you to be too busy.”

He waves with the hand she has not touched. The crowd has the grace to look sheepish, to start dispersing. 

“I was. The Facets have begun to look for hands willing to venture out for work again,” she says with a harsher, louder voice meant to carry and bid adventurers find their quest. A tone they’ve both heard far too many times, and thus the mimicry comes easily, “and while I had my own done in full for the morning I thought to find you.”

“Dare I ask why?”

She looks aside, checking with her shadow. Ardbert nods, steps forwards to break free from the crowd fully. Not that he will be seen any more as he is, but the intent is crystal-clear.

“A mutual friend was asking after you,” she starts. Closes the distance a step further, heels clicking too sharp on the tiled streets. “From the Wandering Stairs?” 

Elidibus’ brow furrows. He looks away from her, scanning the crowds and finding them too thin to make a clean getaway without being pursued, or drawing attention with the thrum of aether for a portal. He settles into an expression by increments, mismatched piece by piece. Steely eyes. Brows and mouth in a way that suggests remorse, having forgotten to visit someone dear for too long. Voice too sharp, forced into its proper shape.

“I will make my way there. She…”

“Would you mind my company?”

It is not a question.

Neither is it a threat. She bears no weapons to be seen, and her arms are loose at her sides. Ardbert draws in closer, enough to see and almost-feel the tense of Elidibus’ body- his body- at the display.

“I doubt I will be able to miss the tavern.”

“No,” she says with a feigned shrug. Feigned ease. “But I would ask after a friend myself.” 

A foe. A part of her own soul. The word is ill-fitting and all three of them know it. In the sunlight, Ardbert watches Elidibus force himself to take even breaths.

“It would’ve been after too long.” Elidibus bites, voice kept cool, but he strides to cross her easily. Ardbert sighs, his presence unnecessary, though perhaps it is better that they not need to reveal him still there so soon. 

“Perhaps.”

She follows, heels clicking on tile, as Elidibus leads the way.

They are silent for a while. Stoic, as befits their personas.

Still, they do not take the most direct route. Elidibus veers away to path through the gardens before the Pendants, taking a circuitous route that does not take them through the markets. His hands remain away from Ardbert’s weapon strapped to his back, his eyes remain set forwards. If she is disappointed that he does not think to glance to the side, to ensure that she is not drawing a hidden blade for him, she takes care not to show it.

He has not noticed how, despite the slight shroud cast by tree-shadows and tall buildings, a speck of light continues to trail him. At his side, across from the Warrior of Darkness, faintly warm as sunlight refracted through crystal would be. Grass unbending to its step. 

There are fewer people here, and once there are none he speaks. In his own voice, not Ardbert’s, and he looks when she startles at it.

“This would not be a ruse, would it? After I have cast aside such frivolities?”

“No.”

“Why were you surprised then?”

“That you would ask.”

Elidibus turns forwards again. His stride is unbroken, and he waits for her to elaborate.

“There is little to interest you in the affairs of mortals,” she starts. Stops, clicking her tongue. “At least of those who would know better than to fall for the act, convincing as it is for those who would not know otherwise.”

“Did they expect a disgraced man to live for another century or so? To return, hale and whole, from the grave?”

“I do not know.” Ardbert flinches, the sunlight brushing Elidibus’ arm, and he turns to search for it. “Nor did I think they would take to it so easily.”

“You would be better suited asking them than asking me, if that is what would sate your curiosity.”

She does not answer. Not until they are nearly at the foot of the wooden platforms and uneven stairs that lead to the eponymous tavern from behind. Heels clicking on stone again, instead of muted by grass. Ardbert cannot see Cyella at work from here, though he does see that even the back of the bar is beginning to pick up a crowd. The viis from the restoration workshop arranges a set of tables in a half-moon, with the stools all fanned out on the outside of the curve; in the center, her lute rests against a stool. People watch her, but will not aid. The day crowd has not the time, as the night crowd has not the coordination for it.

“Were you to Emet-Selch’s ruins?”

Elidibus stops only when he is certain she is at his back. Ardbert keeps pace with him, and only sees his own profile, expression schooled into neutrality. It does not fit his face; it might, were they to overlay his formal mask and cowl. 

“I have been there many times,” he speaks to the air, to himself. “His memory is exceedingly precise, down to the seasonal blooms that would have been in the planters. To the people that waited for an answer regarding what was to come.”

She stays perfectly still to let him continue. There would be no silence to her steps, nor weightlessness; Ardbert is not bound by such constraints. He closes the distance, curving around to meet his own body’s gaze. Whatever Elidibus sees, it is not the preparations for another night of music.

He does not startle at the touch Ardbert lays on one shoulder, gripping, willing him to turn around. He does not shift. He only speaks, in his measured, rasping cadence.

“The ruins of the Words of Lahabrea, the broken spires after the end… each and every soul. You cannot claim to want to know every one of them.”

“I would start with you.”

“Was Hades not enough?”

“I have known you for longer,” desert winds and chasing voidsent just behind his heels, waiting atop the cliffs of Kholusia with another grave dug out, “And there were words left unsaid.”

“There is much that is left undone, Warrior of Light.”

“So there is,” she says. Heels clicking again as she approaches. Ardbert’s hand grips hard, ghostly flesh sinking into the fur and metal of his guard, the heat more tangible than he is. Elidibus startles first to the touch, then to the Warrior of Light passing him by and turning on her heel so they are face to face. 

“While I cannot let you accomplish all you desire, I do not wish for all of it to linger. Or to be lost.”

“You could not understand-”

“Not even if I took you there?”

Elidibus hisses in a breath. Waits. Smoothes his expression down, whittling away the dismay, the outrage. Ardbert has never seen his own face so lacking in emotion; neither has she, and her confused expression gives the truth of it.

“To overrun, silent ruins.”

“Would they be so to you?”

“Emet-Selch was not thinking of his duties when he constructed the replica,” and Elidibus’ voice is a brittle kind of smooth. Lines read by rote. His eyes shift from the heat-haze, to the Warrior of Light, to nothing at all. “Nor was he thinking of sharing all his knowledge. He has not done so in several of your lifetimes; he would not do so at the end of one.”

“And yet he did.”

The Warrior of Light’s arms are crossed over her chest. Elidibus will not look at her. Ardbert cannot make him, though he does tug on his own body’s shoulder. Ghostly flesh sinking into leather, metal, fur and muscle; she follows the motion of his hand with her eyes, watches Ardbert repeat it, and brings her own away from herself.

Elidibus’ expression remains distant when she lays her hand over Ardbert’s over his body, but he shifts it to where they touch nonetheless. 

“He was not thinking of his duties, no. Or not in the way you needed him to.”

He pulls away. She lets him, her hand dropping to her side after a beat. Elidibus focuses on her now, on them. His eyes barely narrow to fight against that pesky sunbeam, Ardbert shifting only so her arm does not slice through his own still holding to his body on the way down. 

“I thought you not the gloating kind.”

Her gaze briefly flicks to Ardbert. Back to Elidibus. She fights to keep back a smile mirroring the man’s own.

The Emissary raises an eyebrow. They are still alone, with sparse crowds, with the sun still far too high overhead for plentiful shadows, for rest. 

“I try not to be,” and it is true. “As I do not try to lead people in circles,” and it is only a little bit false. She shows the Emissary both of her open, empty palms. Before his eyes, away from his skin, away from the faint weight of Ardbert’s touch demanding he stand and hold his court. Focus mingles with confusion behind blue eyes, as marked as when offered friendly greeting. 

She continues before he chases any other thought too far. “If a journey to… such a destination is not to your tastes, I shall not push. Yet I would still want to have a chance to know you somewhere.”

“The place is not the matter, Warrior of Light.”

She tilts her head to the side only slightly, the better to catch the steel in his tone with. He does not rasp, he does not purr as Emet-Selch, he does not snarl. She watches tension tighten his hands into fists, loosen them; she waits for a flicker of aether that does not come.

He has lashed out before. It is not a lack of tempered anger that holds him back now.

“We did not pursue you before,” not in Thanalan, not with Kholusia’s sky poisoned with white, not with a pale shadow awkwardly trying to blend into the Solar. If the Emissary hears the Scions, it is not something they can fix. “And we cannot turn back time to those battles. But we can offer it now.”

“We?”

She clicks her tongue once, looks away. Ardbert sighs, pushing her beyond the mistake with one of his thoughts. Seto’s fading shadow, turning to find the Emissary waiting just as he is now. In all but garb, perhaps.

“If you would have only myself, I can arrange that. Certainly you would get fewer demands than from all my party, and less disbelief.” 

She would be less guarded. And if he is still not to simply take his axe to her, then it pays to know what the others may be looking for out of his sight. Ardbert frowns, and waits to see that expression mirrored on his own face. It is not for the same reason Elidibus would do that, and in any case he does not.

She shrugs, shifts her hands away from her body. Open, palms bared. It is a flimsy offering, for all that it is honest or the promise of peace.

“I know not how it is for you, but it is sometimes too much for one person alone to do. To wander, to plan, to barely have in your hand… talking with someone is a far less daunting task,” and the smile she gives is rueful. Not at Ardbert, not at the Emissary, but with her face twisted away. “Even if knowing is a goal that takes far more than just one day devoted to it.”

The viis has finished arranging her stage. The lute’s strings are plucked, the same note rising and falling in pitch until she finds the perfect tone. It is a distraction, as much as anything else. The three of them listen to her tune the instrument, finding it near to what it should be.

The Emissary breaks the awkward silence first.

“There is little I can tell you that you would understand, not having lived it.”

Not the truth of the Final Days, Ardbert mouths at her as he steps away from the Emissary standing stiff with his body, or what came before, but between the both of them they can come to some close if pale reflection. The tall walls of the Flood, the falling night-sky of Carteneau.

“Is that a yes, then?”

Her hands are already open and empty; it is easy to shift one so it is offered. The clawed gauntlets she wears leave half her palm bare, the rest all bristling, gilded leather. It is still softer than what the Emissary wears upon his own, moved slowly to take hers.

Despite it all, the hand is no colder than that of any other man’s.

Ardbert pushes on his body’s back with his hand. It steals a smile from the Warrior, her own steps picking up to not let Ardbert lead the way alone.

  
  


To her surprise, Elidibus turns away.

She lets him, even as Ardbert starts after him, eager to catch his own body. He may not be able to force himself to stand still; he offers resistance as he may. Harsh sunlight over his skin, the needles of being seen upon his back.

Elidibus does not go far. Only back to the foot of the Wandering Stairs, solid ground without the haze of soon-to-be music, soon-to-be crowds. Only just enough to pull her hold taut, hands still entwined. He is not using his body’s strength; he is not looking at her with Ardbert’s eyes.

“I will not beg your company, Emissary.”

“Will you ask then that I humor your requests for privacy at a tavern?”

The tone is mocking; she falls for it, furrowing her brow. At the side of her soul, a ripple of clouds over sunlight, she knows Ardbert does the same. She surrenders a step, two, enough to let their arms fall slack; still joined at the hand, Ardbert muses out loud enough for her to feel. With a hum in agreement, she stalls to think.

“No, of course. There are- could be- too many people there. The gardens will not do either,” and her room is…

They are below the Pendants, and the Exarch has more pressing duties than watching her through his crystalline mirror. Even should he do so, there is little he can do to stop them without admitting to his curiosity, to his leaving tasks alone.

It is still leading a foe into her own den.

“So little planning?”

She moves past him. She will not tug on his hand, though she feels over her skin how Ardbert bristles, tries to pull on his own body by force of his own determination. Elidibus does not break the contact, though neither does he immediately move. Unduly passive, eyes on her. Their circuitous route has served them well in this, the Pendants almost literally straight behind them; she releases him once they cross the main entrance, the Manager of the suites looking up from his desk.

“I will have one guest, and see him off myself.” She speaks to the Manager, trusting Ardbert to keep his gaze on Elidibus. It is not much of a safety net, but it is better than nothing; if she does not descend in some reasonable time, someone will come find her body, or at least a wrecked room. For all that it is giving herself some protection, it rings uneasy, cold against her soul. The Manager nods, beckons her to pass.

Ardbert nudges against her side, turns her around. For a mercy, Elidibus has not moved from where she released him, his eyes scanning the curving open walkways lined with apartment doors. She offers him her hand again, and though he doesn’t take it he does turn to her.

“Come with me: I have somewhere private.”

Up a flight, favoring a wrought-iron spiral between two buildings. Along one of the galleries over the waterway. Small, her bed separated from the main living area by little more than a screen and a desk, and a door leading into the cramped washroom. The kitchen near spills over to the entrance, largely unused; a table far too large for just the one person fills out a full third of the space.

On its surface lies a game of cards, left mid-play. Two hands, one face down and one face up; scales and trios set before a stacked deck. Her traveling pack takes over a chair of its own, with her weaponry leaned against it. Heat blooms over her face, embarrassment cast aside only after it is shown to no one but empty air, and she beckons Elidibus in.

She closes the door behind him, fits the key to its lock. The Manager has his own copy of the keys; Elidibus has many and more ways to flee the scene than just walking out. With a sigh, she turns the lock, hears it click shut.

“Please, be at ease,” she says, and waves a hand over towards the table. She follows her own motion, Ardbert’s footsteps light besides her, as he takes note of their running score. His hand glides over the card backs, light concealing and playing over the printed symbols, and soon enough she has swept them up, shuffled them neatly back into the deck and left it stacked aside by the wilting central arrangement. She cannot hide she has been recently gone; she does not try to. 

Elidibus’ steps are heavy. He does not draw closer, pushing further into the room to stand before the clear window, blue skies spread out far beyond its frames. The flowers growing in the sill’s planter are accustomed to not being tended to often; without her care, they begin to spill out of their confines. He does not speak, does not turn. When Ardbert draws apart from her to keep an eye on him, he only finds him tracing the petals with unexpected delicacy for all that he wears heavy leather gloves.

More to busy herself than anything, and with an old host’s memories upon her skin, she sets a kettle of water to boil. A fire crystal, lit with her own magic, set under a metal grate; kettle filled with water from a tap. Ardbert reminds her of the tea leaves, left in the third cupboard to her right. Near empty; if she is to remain here for any length of time again, she would do good to restock her stores. A sniff to check that they are not stale- just in case- and thinking loudly to herself she wonders where she left the honey. Beside the tea. The cups are in the first cupboard to the left of the stove. Plain porcelain, glazed pale blue. 

She sets two cups side by side. Sets the tea leaves in the middle, the small clay pot of honey with its spoon. Returns to the stovetop, finding a spare metal stand over which to rest the pot without damaging the table’s surface, leaves it next to the other apparatus for tea.

Ardbert and Elidibus remain still. Elidibus watching the flowers- she doubts he is so enraptured by near-barren stone- Ardbert watching him in the way one keeps an eye out for approaching foes. The double sight is unnerving, so she resolves to break it by setting the kettle down with a pointed thunk.

“I do not know how you take your tea, and I would not have a guest stay here with nothing to eat or drink. Unless you prefer the fare I take while out of town.”

Elidibus turns after her words, furrowing his brow at the cup set for him. Empty, the kettle’s spout spewing steam in lazy curls. The Warrior of Darkness sitting on a chair, next to the place set. Tea leaves and a spoonful of honey carefully dropped within her cup. He pulls out his chair soundlessly, checking it almost as an afterthought for any of her items; satisfied with its emptiness, he takes his own seat.

Leaves first, but no honey. She pours a cup full of hot water for each and sets the kettle aside. The leaves will be a while to steep and dye the water with their color; longer than she wants to be silent. Sitting in her own room, next to her enemy masquerading as someone dear, she watches Ardbert round the table to wait by her side, soul no longer pulled taut. His gaze remains on Elidibus, even as he waits for the tea to steep as well.

“One of the Shades spoke to me,” her voice starts almost without her. Ardbert turns away from where he tries to burn into his own body to find her expression, read her thoughts. The spectral city, shrouded in white. This they both know, then, and not one of her escapes. “Beyond what Emet-Selch recreated, that is.”

“I do not think that that is possible,” Elidibus starts, stops. He cannot hear Ardbert sigh, focus again on him with all the strength of winter sunlight through the glass. “Or not were he truly focused, at any rate.”

“The Shade believed itself to be a distraction; I would not know the difference.” She shrugs, the motion flowing from her shoulders to click the tip of claws so very lightly upon the porcelain of the cup. “Whoever they saw was not me.”

“No. Emet-Selch would not have seen you.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“I do, but it makes no difference.”

Ardbert leans forwards. Only against the back of her chair, warmth almost heavy over her body. His arms cross, support themselves on her shoulders, trusting her strength. Elidibus knows, he murmurs, and he lies. She has to keep Ardbert’s voice from seeping into her own then, humming softly to let his thoughts linger. 

The question is still his. “Who do you see?”

“Hydaelyn’s chosen,” Elidibus answers as if he was reading out from a book. “One of many.”

“Not them,” she says, raising her cup to her lips. “It is me you humor now.”

Despite himself, sight unseen, she feels the tug of Ardbert’s grin behind her soul. Elidibus’ expression returns to something guarded, a hiss stifled quickly at the back of his throat. Pale blue eyes drawn away to find some shadow in the room, not sunlight, not the Warrior sipping at her drink.

“It makes no difference. You are not the first to have asked, much as you may be the last. You will not be the first to be answered.”

“Do you want to, Elidibus?” 

In her tongue, his title sounds more like a name. In his tongue, she remembers, it would not be something that could be mistaken for something so personal. Crystalline glass, chimes in the wind.

He sits so very still. Even breaths, gaze lost. Ardbert reaches out, over her shoulder, and presses his fingers against his body’s jaw. It does little to make him turn his face to her, even as Ardbert tries to put strength behind his gesture. Her own fingers twitch with the force of it, imagined as it is, as she sets her cup back on the table.

She raises her voice just barely. “Would you tell anyone of Amaurot all that you would remember of a world in their absence?”

“... of course,” he starts. Still in his voice, steel seeping back in. “It is lesser in their absence, but not for that something that my people would not have found fear and wonder in.”

Ardbert seizes her voice before she can, the speed his even if the tones are hers. Harsh in disbelief, in bitter pride. “Wonder?”

“You create. Where you cannot with your bare hands, with your bare thoughts, you make possible by steps. Breath by breath, life by life.”

He raises his cup to his lips, takes a soundless sip. All without watching, not her, not anything in the room.

“You forget much in the same manner. You destroy with far more ease. Your wishes bend so easily to that impulse, finding the past only to tear it apart.”

The barb rasps against the back of her throat, for all that it is only words. Pale blue eyes find hers, wait for a reaction, for a retort. She counts away thoughts with the click of her claws on porcelain. Watches Ardbert lower his hand from his own body’s jaw, fingers twitching. Whatever memories run through his mind, they mirror her own; far too many days painted in blood, betrayals stained with tears and ash. Lakeland made a nightmare under rain.

Just as many peaceful nights, rest hard-won under the stars.

Elidibus takes another sip of his tea, eyes focusing again. Steel and ice, and if it proves his point that her defiance brings words to her lips then so be it. She bites back blame, meets him with all the relentlessness of two warriors of light.

Yet she still capitulates, bittersweet, stirring in another spoonful of honey. “So we do. I will not waste my breath denying you.”

He startles by falling far too perfectly still. Near-unbreathing, unblinking. Like him, Ardbert is arrested, staring at her, expecting something else. They wear confusion different upon their face, something she can near-clearly see with them both side-by-side.

“But it is not for destroying that I fight, as much as it surrounds me.” 

“Is this when you say that you fight for those you love? To protect some flawed yet beautiful realm, to your heart as dear as a pale shade of Amaurot would be to mine?”

The honey melts. Ardbert frowns at his body, the unexpected heat in Elidibus’ rasp. Her head tilts slightly to the side, confusion felt soul-deep twofold; she will let Elidibus keep his miss-step to himself. She straightens up before she continues with her words. “I could, but you would dismiss me; besides, if I ever thought I could sway you, it would not be now. Not even with all the guile I could muster, or all my magic levelled at your chest.”

“Why would you halt me then, if it would not benefit you?”

“It does. Adventurers will not hear your tales from your lips, though not for that will they be lacking in stories of the Warriors of Light to charm them this day.” A click of her claw on porcelain; almost too loud to her ears, Elidibus’ brows furrowing in thought at the noise. “Though, if I were honest…

I met other Warriors of Light on my journey. Bright souls all, as you may have surmised, dear in some way or another. I saw most others die. All the while… what killed them was not battle, nor your fellows. It was not knowing. Being blinded by that light, torn apart by its sweet call. One told me it didn’t matter, shortly before he met his end.”

A breath, behind her soul. Liquid flame, for she knows her own lie, knows Elidibus knows it too even if not the full of it. No matter, for she is not truly deceiving him, does not expect him to fall for such a turn of phrase.

“‘Seek a different path,’ he said. And then I did not, or else we would not be here.” Her voice catches, half a laugh she does not feel, half Ardbert’s bemusement at realizing that she thought of him. Not alone- impossible, it is not the hero’s lot- but she did and- “Or else I would not have had a chance to learn, feel what I did.”

“Yet you were not swayed. Nor stopped, not even knowing.”

“Elidibus, you yourself spoke of the wonder and fear you imagined those you long for would feel. Surely, at some time, you must have been moved.”

He sighs, low in his throat. Closes his eyes. There is an odd satisfaction in getting him to yield, even in such a small way. Ardbert leans on her, gently nudges her forwards as if she could will Elidibus’ eyes to open by coming close enough.

“Once. In the way you marvel at fragile things, as easily broken by your gaze as by anything else. Which is why I must ask, is there a reason for this?”

“I will not beg, Elidibus. Though I will still ask if you truly wish to linger here, or trade any words. It is no offense that you request to leave.”

She waits for him to stand. Waits for him to draw some hidden weapon, or tenebrous magic. 

She is met by only stillness, Elidibus’ eyes shut again. 

“Before, you spoke of how it became too much,” Elidibus starts. His voice wavers, shifts. Darkness giving way to shadow, a double-note glided over strings. “You have not been fooled by this possession. If you have taken heed of Emet-Selch’s last will, it is as his killer, feigning remorse in the hopes of a lighter sentence. Your Mother will not change Her own for my kind; you do not intend to halt your path.”

Sight unseen, his fingers curl around his cup. Still nearly full, bitter enough to render it nigh undrinkable. Elidibus does not lift it, leeches warmth in small fractions from its surface. It is a uniquely mortal way to stall, perhaps, or at least one that keeps both of his hands visible.

“I fail to see how this is taking a different one, as you so wished. And it is… exhausting, to speak and not be listened to. To be asked to yield, to give, to relent again for nothing.”

For all that she will only ever snare the Emissary once, and that briefly, it strikes her that this might be the most words she has exchanged with an Ascian. Not Emet-Selch with his methodical haunting, taunts and lures set in her way as if she worked like any other mortal soul. Not Lahabrea with a relentless, frenzied pursuit. Ardbert looks back, concedes much the same. Among pawns there was much, blood and tired grins and tears. 

Elidibus is no pawn. Not by his own design, or his own actions. If he has his own puppet’s chains, he has avoided them by looping them around other souls. Has every failure, every success that cannot ring sweet.

Ardbert idly wonders, straightening up to look at his body from a higher vantage, if Elidibus felt his own noose tighten around his neck every time. 

She raises her cup to her lips, stops the rim of porcelain just before her skin. Tastes bitter tea, ice, salt air. “Each of us may not be able to do more than remember the other, when the time comes that we fall. By each other’s hands, or not. By the weight of all that we have won, or all that we could not save. I would still keep it locked in my heart, a dream to chase and to know in every fragile fragment."

She swallows that running tally down with tea, with more bitter words. Alphinaud could almost be proud. "But I cannot take that path alone. None of us can remember that which we do not know, nor choose to forget without that which sweetly hurts to feel."

Ardbert slipped a barb in with her voice. Near subtle, aimed at all instead of just Elidibus. A curl of her mouth, tired and on edge, just on the opposite side of aggressive, cast like sunlight upon her face.

"Besides, there is a satisfaction in the telling. In creating a story out of it. Or I would not have heard so many memories, grand and small, in all the time before trying to lead you into one."

Elidibus' shoulders shake once. Light rippling over steel.

"You would never have made for a good Orator. Not then, much less now. There is far too much space for someone else’s words to fill over your own. Far too little ground you give, despite an open hand.”

He drains half his cup in one motion, fails to wash away his words.

  
  
  


Elidibus avoids speaking of himself.

The city blooms slowly with his words. Tall spires fading into mist, meetings long into the night. She still gathers he kept odd hours, by duty if not by pleasure. By the dust of the road, if Amaurot’s world even had such minor inconveniences. There is muted surprise that he would be affected by it, no matter the adventurer’s face he wears. That he would do such common missions of an Emissary, when they know him only for being an omen, for pulling on strings.

There were far fewer stars then. Emet-Selch saw the flow of the Underworld- their Lifestream, their souls- but no matter how much she tries to get Elidibus to confess if he could, or could not see its glittering trail, he does not say. Neither does he mention any lingering ability of hers to see it; Ardbert reins in her disappointment, if far more subdued, with a reminder of the Echo. Of broken ghosts trapped in crystal, released at long last.

Of running into a dead man’s arms. She admits, in some capacity, that she has done so more than once.

They bewilder differently, become curious more so. Ardbert leaning in, as if around a fire and not simply around cups of tea that need refilling; Elidibus with cooler calculation. Not the Scions, before they remember where they stand, but simply as a matter of an adventurer’s life. There is always death in it; she’s been called upon for closure, on rare occasions. Hymns trailing off, shields broken and buried, lovers together in death. Fading ribbons of pink and white.

Elidibus is polite, asking for his opposite number. It is no surprise that she is gone, not with Ryne plainly in view. It is no intent of his to directly bring her harm, nor will Norvrandt want to harm its beloved Oracle who returned the night, returned heroes to the realm with her hands held in theirs. Ardbert still bristles, cold against her shoulder, the desert at night. The yawning silence of the aetherial sea. 

It is not safe to tell him all, nor fair; Ardbert’s tone is clipped against her soul, his eyes off to the side. They settle for pleasantries, for things wished to be said. To she who was the Voice, too evidently gone, to Ryne absent in some business or another learning to fill her own days. Each has their own to tend to, and while the Warrior of Light has never doubted that they would go to her aid, these are not matters for her comrades in arms.

Companions. Loved ones that she needs not mention. Unmasked, it is fairly clear Elidibus has his own eyes. He will realize himself that if they chased each other across the rift, deep into the end of the world, the bond is no trifling thing. 

She still has the Emissary of Zodiark in her rooms for tea. He spars against her over it, direct strikes and loping circles of words, trying to piece together details. She deflects to travels, half-remembered, half-done; she rallies around attempts to ask about his own companions. Whatever she expects, she does not get; of Emet-Selch he will speak little, of Lahabrea less. Elidibus clearly knew them; what he uses to evade is born from closeness more than distance, though she hears little of their souls. Known to him, and once held closely, in high regard. They fought, together or apart; they fell each by themselves.

Again, on the defensive. She stalls by pouring them tea again, the water taking the deep gold hue at its own pace. Ardbert has her speak of the Virtues, the long hunts and journeys of the heart that the Scions simply wouldn’t have had the inclination for- they could have, but she was guarded, wanted to know and fight for herself- the story itself. Parts lived as well as remembered, felt as well as told. A sliver of sharpness in the betrayal, cold as Lakeland when it rains; a shade of warmth for still remembering, for still wanting to do something.

The circle closes. Elidibus walks the First again, unable to cast a shadow in the gloom. A hero made a pawn, colors faded and regained, words being written once more upon the page. She’s heard it said around her, the starts of a story eerily similar to the memories she’s taken. More often, she hears Hades- Emet-Selch’s requiem. The minstrel that took it upon himself to talk to the returning hero had been among the best of his trade to survive; there is a melody to it that lingers, even if she herself cannot bring herself to sing it.

It is not strange to fathom a victory in which she would have lost something precious regardless of outcome. Only slightly sweetened by the knowledge Amaurot and Norvrandt were never truly hers to lose; only slightly softened by the fact that it was a mercy, to grant death to those who had evaded it for so long, broken under its weight.

There is something glass-like in Elidibus then. Sharp, transparent; Ardbert expects the echo, almost, the ringing weakness of memory. In him, in them. Her hands close taut around her cup, waiting for that strike; Ardbert straightens up just enough to act as support in case she were to sway. What comes is instead barely above a whisper. Near anticlimactic.

Elidibus has barely spoken of himself on this waning day. Yet now, severe as a headsman’s axe, he asks why.

There are some simple answers. She was expected alone. Even with the impossibility of that, the Scions had caught her just before taking flight on an amaro’s wings. She was expected about to turn, her heart burning glass and her body all fractals of crystal and bone. It was a near thing, despite the aid, despite her adamant soul- Ardbert’s soul, she says to herself, his and hers again- despite the serene depths of the sea. The Crystal Exarch was thought to be more weakened, by distance if not by blood loss.

That, she never thought to ask about. Just as well. The Scions have made a point of not asking her of her dives into the ghost city after the fact, or of the pearlescent tears shed as they descended beyond the Seventh Gate. 

They will ask if they know of this, Ardbert hums, as he will ask if she intends to keep it secret. If Elidibus himself intends to do the same.

The Ascian asks about the city. The shades. He does not check against his memory, as he knows Hades’s to be immaculate- Emet-Selch, to her, the title harsher than the melancholy cadence of the name. She mentioned Archaeotania, freshly and unwillingly freed from the abattoir of the Words of Lahabrea; she mentioned books upon books, waiting to be opened and release their scent of ancient dust. She has incomplete copies Elidibus does not wish to see. 

Ardbert warns her to avoid Hythlodaeus, in a quiet tone more similar to the one he uses to speak of the Scions. A friend then, a weakness. Elidibus does not ask of him, only if there were shades she herself knew, and she finds it easy to lie. She did not remember him, so it is not even completely divorced from the truth.

Elidibus refills their cups with the last dregs of the kettle’s water, each close to overfilling. Exhales, softer than a last breath. Despite herself, she takes a sip of tea, notices no change in its taste.

She cannot possibly know the toll of conjuring such an illusion. There is no amount of blood that will sate it, not even the Exarch’s with the Tower’s might, or Emet-Selch’s with ancient, vibrant life. And to think that magic itself will slake its hunger is to forget her own knowledge, her own tools.

She was not able to make it an easy death, still. Emet-Selch did not go gentle into the night, not even with his chest rent in half. It is not an apology, for she will not disgrace her opponent implying he did not fight to the last, with all his might. That for every drop of blood she drew, for every plume of smoke, she paid a high price. Near her soul- hers, and his, and hers again- nearly her friends’ lives.

No simple fight. No simple answer. Ardbert bids her glance aside, look away from Elidibus’s guarded silence, to follow instead his slow steps across to his own body. As if they were meeting again, that first time under that eternally brilliant sky, shadows fading from him to reveal a soul. As if it was waiting below the Stairs for the talos to bear them up. Ardbert borrows her voice then, in brief bursts that twine with her own words. Tense from distance, from speaking only loud enough to be heard. He’s still the better speaker, even now; he’s the one that knows best what it means to leave one’s own life and soul behind. 

What finally killed Emet-Selch was them, yes. After a chase, after casting hearts bare and both light and dark aside.

He had been waiting for that death for longer. For kind specters, that did not share his burdens even as they shared his heart; for brothers to return home again. They cannot, even now, speak if they would have been enough, if they would have even been there. She knows the Scions were for her, despite it all.

Elidibus has stopped looking at her. She wonders if he sees Amaurot, or those empty halls of the moon. Memories hers and not.

When he made a necropolis, Emet-Selch only left undecided what body would rest upon the bier. He bid the sweet mourners attend, he lit every light, he left the music ever playing the last stable beats. It was false company, unable to truly know the depths of the heart, and yet it was better than to face that abyss alone.

She sees more than hears Elidibus break first. A low hiss, choked off. Eyes finding hers with dull flame. Ardbert startles, on the wrong side of his body, watching the fine tremble along the arms. He is quiet about daring her to claim it a mercy, to claim it knowing him.

It was not a mercy to put Emet-Selch to the axe. It was inevitable. His broken heart was only the weapon he had. More than the magic he so easily wove, more than his crystal staff and claws and monstrous wings. If there was a choice, it was only in how they would face him. She could not choose a surrender. No more than Emet-Selch could. Such is a hero’s lot, to ever choose what is theirs to save over even granting themselves a soft exit from the stage. It was not a mercy, but it was as close to a kindness as she could grant to meet him as a respected enemy.

Not an equal, and she sees something in Elidibus’s frame jump. Surprise, perhaps, or vindication. It would not do him honor to simply claim the fight was fair. The Ascian’s eyes are not watery, though they could be; his voice is made to be a steady rasp. Vowing to remember him is not much more of a kindness, with her weapon the one to kill him, but it is the one in her hand to grant. And trying to understand him without the impending threat of blood is something that at least is different. 

Him, and not a memory of him. Not a shade. Eerie for her to think this, with Ardbert also standing there. But Ardbert at least let her claim her victories from his voice. 

Elidibus collects himself, lets himself be steady in truth. She lets him have his time, watches Ardbert out of the corner of his eyes exhale. When Elidibus openly wonders about her surrender, there is no expectation that she will cease the fight. She cannot, though the Ascian can stop his own path even less than she. The scales must still and always be balanced.

There is almost relief in her exhale. Not quite. But he has not run.

She lets herself ask if he truly intends to endure alone for the next millennium. The one after that. Elidibus does not answer- privately, between herself and Ardbert they doubt if he ever would have- but with a breath he relents. He will have to, as is his duty. Made all the more solemn now, without Emet-Selch’s pomp or Lahabrea’s relentless flame. It is not yet her surrender, but it will be soon, she promises.

Great men broke under less. She will not claim that Elidibus will suffer; nonetheless, she is mortal and thus expects it. The soul that beats in her chest does so as much for others’ wishes as it does for her own. Elidibus unfurls a crooked grin then, bittersweet, off to the side. She will not claim that Elidibus will be known either, let alone understood. 

He needs not be. Not by her. 

She only half-wonders if he wants to, and lets it curl like smoke. Like illusions fading into aether.

If she were to lose, she says with her guards up, she wants him to remember. She is mortal, and a meddler, and she has brought many plans to ruin in the same breath she asks Elidibus for a night of ceasefire. She knows, soul-deep and two-fold, what it is to be a puppet on well-loved strings. On harsher ones, if she is to be fair, but the world will not know that. Will not remember.

They cannot blame them, Ardbert says with something sharp in his throat, echoed in her voice. They are only the heroes for as long as they serve, and that with pride. They’ve grown used to being only a partial memory, even if they know that Elidibus will only ever think of them as foes.

Defiant to his will. Quiet as an undertow, as quicksand in the desert. Just as ravenous. She refuses to be sated by only being the hero, she refuses to be sated by having only one world under her wing. Odd then, that she requests Elidibus pretend to remember her as a person.

He has not been one in far too long either.

He has not been lonely in all that time.

She does not ask him if he is so now. With the day beginning to tip into evening, and words still waiting upon her throat, she asks if Elidibus wants to stay. 

When Elidibus speaks, it is unexpected to hear him almost improvising, thoughts far more loose in his scheme. 

Surely, she does not expect him to remember or understand, knowing so little. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a reminder to please heed the tags. and with that on to earning the explicit rating.

She has surrendered her light jacket and her clawed gloves, but no more. The Emissary, wearing Ardbert’s body, has kept most if not all of his clothes; he is only lacking the most rigid metallic protections, arrayed neatly where she has taken them from him. The heavy, spiked guard around one of his arms falls to the floor with a dull clunk. No more of his armor follows. The bedding dips under his weight, and he braces himself on his hands as soon as both are free from her grasp.

It is not precisely even. The Emissary in Ardbert’s body may have shed more layers, but it is she that has bare skin open to sight, down her arms and interrupted only by light chains, the last of unobtrusive jewelry more a hassle to remove than to keep. The visible shadow of a necklace, close to the skin, taut around the base of her neck and over the stone set in its middle.

One of her hands grabs his wrist, rests her weight on her hand on his. The other she rests on his shoulder, trails inwards. The base of his neck, the edge of fabric under his jaw. Elidibus’ breathing is steady, forcibly slow. She pushes the fabric aside, reveals warm skin.

A scar, just at the base of the neck, raised and paler than the rest. Thick as a blade, angled to cut through the artery carrying his heartbeat under her fingers. Picking up speed, shifting the slow cadence of Ardbert’s body’s breathing. She rubs her thumb over the scar, finding the ridges of it, hiding it from her sight with her own skin.

She hears feels thinks two breaths pick up. One below her, Elidibus pulling on his own restraint to remain distant, both of his hands pressed on the covers of her bed. One just behind, just to the side of her heartbeat, close enough to feel her touch on his body from her side. Ardbert cleaves close to her, spectral warmth and weight surrounding her, before he tries to guide her hand away. It is a mortal wound, it is a reminder; they are each only taking from the others.

She offers enough resistance to have Elidibus’ breath shudder once, her hand pressing in against his neck. Just enough to feel the work of his throat, words held down with air. Curving up, finding his bare jaw with her hand. Slow enough, as if she was still minding claws; there is some irony there, forced aside. Her thoughts, Ardbert’s thoughts; he does not feel colder than any mortal man, for all that it is Elidibus wearing his skin.

“Who do you see,” Elidibus asks, in his own voice. She feels it vibrate under her hand, his lips moving just by her thumb.

“Elidibus,” she answers, glides her hand to the back of his head. Close-cropped hair, just enough to tangle fingers in, meets her palm. It isn’t a hold, with how light her touch is; she shifts to meet his gaze and pin him that way, if he allows it. “As a man.”

“I am not,” his voice glides over her fingers, over her lips. Sight unseen, the hand of his that she is not using to brace herself with trails up her back, sends shivers up her spine. He is no different to touch than a mortal man, no colder, with a pulse that speeds up at his wrist when she tightens her grip on him upon the bed.

He flinches into her. Closes eyes of stolen blue. Rough lips ghost over her own, true contact a brief thing. 

She does not pursue, lingers just over him. One hand holding his, the other ghosting touch over Ardbert’s hair. Elidibus’ hand lingers on her back, as does his breath over her mouth.

“Show me, then.”

He bears her down on the bed in increments. Elidibus pushes her against his body with borrowed strength, slants his lips against hers so she can feel chilled breath. Fingers over every ridge of her spine, stuttering as he finds warmth beneath the skin, roiling against his touch.

There is a scar through her chest that she sighs to feel touched, pulls away from his kiss to feel the weight of his grip. She is surprised when he follows, when he reels her in close again. The motion is awkward, uncoordinated; shifting from the back of her soul to the body beneath. Not only Elidibus’ kiss then. She breaks to breathe, to shift so she nips at the bottom lip, feels a phantom growl burst across her throat. 

The room spins. Falls. Phantom weight followed by real, Elidibus’ hands bracketing her shoulders, a body over hers. Warmth trailing across her jaw, down her neck, muffled by skin and flesh and bone. His lips find hers again, determined to be slow. Low in her throat, Ardbert sighs, a delayed sensation against her. If he cannot make Elidibus command his body into claiming, he can guide hers with phantom touch. Hands that curve along her sides, down her arms to guide her hold around Elidibus’ shoulders and catch his breath where it swells beneath his chest. No skin but the harsh feel of the gambeson, resilient even against blunted nails, rough where it creases her clothes. She scrabbles against his back, finding purchase on the fabric to pull it away. No spines of gold to slice her hand, but she underestimated how many layers Ardbert’s armor was made of, rough scales and some other layer of fabric to shield his own skin.

Elidibus draws back. Her hands slide down his spine, strummed along his ribs and covered by fabric seeking to return to its rightful place over his body. Leaning up to claim his mouth again, a sigh closer to her soul than to the body against hers felt over her lips and down her neck, she tugs at the fabric again, up over his back to ruffle his hair against the growth. Elidibus doesn’t quite follow the motion, the heavier gambeson scrunching against his shoulders before he moves his arms to help pull it off along with the layer beneath, her hands tangled up in the cloth and pulled over her head.

Against the light as he is, he casts a shadow over her body. Half bare now, unmarked save for the faint mark of a blade slashed across his neck. Her hands work to free themselves; a grip at the base of her wrists stops her. Not without resistance, not until he puts weight on it, enough to feel her pulse and the give of her skin.

She bares fangs at him, pushes against his grip. Elidibus hisses when one of her legs hooks behind his thigh, bows when she pulls him in. He’s not quite touching her, not in the spaces between her trapped wrists and their entangled legs; she dares not reel him closer. Tension draws his frame in, holds him above her with shuddering breaths that aren’t wholly his own.

He crushes words against her lips. The echo does not give her their meaning, nor does the bitterness of ash on her tongue or the rush of aether lighting her veins. Her eyes fall closed nearly without her thought, her limbs fall leaden under Elidibus’ weight. Languid, dark as overly-steeped tea. Hands that release her wrists, chase sparks down her arms to brace at her chest.

-his heart cannot speed up, not under so much stone and crystal, stillness forced into his veins into his lungs, exhaled like smoke-

Teeth along her neck. Too light to break skin, Elidibus remaining delicate. A second shadow deepens the color, holds down her hands, light and heat and pressure. The desire to move, to loop arms around another body’s neck and-

-waves upon waves upon waves, the dark pulling him under like water, endless voices, strings tuning into the practiced bars of a symphony and he falls in, is guided in, every note every chord another replacement to his pulse to his soul he needs to guide-

Wait.

-he no longer fades no longer unravels he finds the note desolation plays takes it in, there is no heart to break no sorrow to twist there will be no more laments no more empty-eyed masks no more him let him be deaf to all but this song His-

Breathe. Please, breathe, but there is something caught in her throat, something guiding her pulse to bloom over her skin-

-starfall burns his chest his eyes, coruscating light and he cannot be lost must not be lost, just as he cannot abandon, he cannot must not let go he cannot lose cannot lose again don’t let him feel don’t let him-

Faintest sunlight, whisper-light, skittering over her bones, her skin. Hair tangled in her fingers, cropped short, coarse instead of aether-silk. 

-purple fading to purest, comforting black despite the static the noise the symphony broken up but He remains, keeping time keeping his heart in His he can still listen-

-the aetherial sea is sunless lightless soundless-

Her heart beats double time out of her chest, fire despite her lack of air. Ardbert pants, draws her soul closer to his, searing light and warmth as he pins her to her own body. Her hand is tangled in Elidibus’ hair, pulling him back at Ardbert’s will; her other hand braces against his shoulder. Nails dig in, the tension and the faint pain of it felt as an echo.

Ardbert pulls with her hand, and she sighs as Elidibus draws away from her neck. There will be a mark, she feels. Just as she feels Ardbert growl against her neck, behind her heart. She cannot lean against him, but she can sink further into her own bed, putting just a breath more distance between herself and Elidibus’ body. His tension relaxes slightly, her heartbeat hers again even if he remains protectively close.

“You asked to see me,” Elidibus sighs. 

Their legs are still tangled, his arms still at her sides. Bracing more than touching. Almost like before, save for a hitch in his breath, marked but regular. Affected.

Despite herself, she relaxes her hold on his hair. Soft, idle strokes, more to buy her time than to truly be felt. Her other arm winds around him in a loose embrace. It would not be able to stop him if he were to draw back. It still keeps Elidibus’ eyes on her, brow furrowed in confusion as she continues to card her fingers through his hair.

“Yes,” she starts. Feels the heat of Ardbert’s will coil around her hands still upon his stolen body, made slow by the soft touch. Lets her nails dig in, giving in to him enough to reassure, to twist Elidibus to truly meet her gaze. “You. Not your god.”

Two gasps. Thoughts rushing swift through her, twined with her own. Her fingers flutter on Elidibus’ back, find the top of his spine and press there, catching the twitch of his muscles. The smile that curves her lips isn’t as reassuring as she wants it to be, but she lets it linger.

“There is no difference.” 

“There has to be,” and she lets Ardbert roughen her voice, lets it seem to be simply the rush of whatever his words did in that strange, chiming language, “it is not Zodiark that followed me to my quarters.”

As it is not a man. 

She lets them breathe. A second rhythm in her own chest; Elidibus bowing his head to scatter her focus by settling himself with his lips upon her throat. Still far too slow, far too cold, Ardbert’s unease tinting the faint sensation over her skin. Her hold constricts, bringing their bodies chest to chest. She does not expect Elidibus to ease the motion; a shuddering sigh answers her as much as a shiver in his shoulder does, his arms yielding bit by bit.

He is no less tense pressed against her body, even if he makes no move to withdraw. Halting, dissociated from herself markedly enough she can nearly see again how Ardbert shifts to grip her hand, guide the motion, she releases her grip. Not far enough to break contact. Her fingertips ghost over his skin, find a tight knot of muscle with the ease of someone familiar with the body. Her hand is pressed to his back, made to soothe in small circles. Elidibus’ breath spills out in halted bursts.

She lets it even out. Ardbert’s hand remains over hers until he’s certain it is only her own strength that continues the slow caresses. A sigh curls against the inside of her throat, warmth pressing from within as she shifts, finds another tense knot. 

“What did you do?” leaves her in an exhale. “I have not felt anything like it.”

A pause. Elidibus tenses, pulls away from her neck only so far so as to be able to regard some of her face with subdued curiosity. She halts her hand’s motion, watches his brows furrow in a way so different from Ardbert’s.

“Surely someone has reached out to you.”

She mirrors his confusion, twofold from the depths of her soul. Elidibus shuts his eyes, draws a deep breath before concealing his face again against her shoulder. Nails dig into his body, pull with as much gentleness as can be had; he follows, though not without resistance.

“Not in that manner.” Not truly, though as she thinks- Ardbert feels, in stuttered shifts along her chest, down her arm- she lets herself pull him close again, full-bodied down to the shift of her hips so one of his legs threads between her own, slots them one over the other. A shudder races down Elidibus’ spine, breaks his disaffected stillness. 

She pulls away. Sinks into the bed, pretends not to notice he does not follow, focuses on something. Anything. Elidibus’ eyes are unfocused, somewhere on her face, clouded with thoughts she is not privy to. His arms rest along her sides, one hand curved beneath and to the side of her shoulder, the other thumbing at the thinnest part of her waist. 

There should be claws, a slim cut beading blood by force of delicate repetition if not strength. 

There should be light, those hands (stolen, not his) grounding her as surely as a second, distant heartbeat, aether sparked to life. Quiet actions replacing quiet words.

“... or at least, not exactly like that,” she appends after Elidibus fails to slice into her skin. His hand at her shoulder tugs, slides so his arm is beneath and pulling her just a fraction closer to his body. More clearly below him, Elidibus now able to click his tongue somewhere around the crown of her head, restraint the only thing keeping her from doing the same to his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat where she’d stop his words. Find a borrowed pulse, to match an embrace that is and isn’t and is again what is longed for. “It was only a shift of aether.”

“So was what I did.”

“I felt you a lot more” still passes her lips. She feels color upon her face, warmth challenged by the glassy chill of light, fingers and knuckles threaded with her own despite the fact she knows Elidibus’ hands are nowhere near where their memories linger. Neither is Ardbert’s hold under her skin any closer, warmth threaded through her ribs, expecting. The odd sense of maybe finally knowing how it would feel, to be surrounded by him.

She leans in, hides her face against his shoulder. Blindly splays a hand over where a heart should be, feels tension prickle her palm, the skin she touches. Breathes in-

Elidibus sighs, a halting thing, pretending to be measured. The shadow of a faint breeze over his skin, chilled, heavy despite its airiness. Salt-sweet like standing on the shore, at the edge of a Crystarium platform, waiting for the light to descend one final time. Tactile like the edge of a weapon brought to bear, like her bites at the bottom of his collarbone, away from that single scar even as it burns off to the side of her thoughts, but she wants to catch his breath- not his- still his in her mouth.

-breathes out, hisses as a hand shifts to pull on her hair, bares her mouth to someone else’s and is made to halt. Almost touching, almost connected, waiting for that first drop of blood.

“Not only me.”

Something bitter, something dark in Elidibus’ voice. He is not himself, as he is not the man he claims to be, as he is not the abyss he has surrendered himself to. He is not the only one she has ensnared in her embrace.

She lowers her arms, ignores the strange feeling of being bereft. Of being finally away from the cold. For all that she releases Elidibus, he does not move away. Does not push her, does not move his hands from where they cradle the back of her neck, the crest of bone at her hip. Instead he bows, keeps her pinned down by force of will alone, by a rasp along her neck.

“Why do you insist on being fooled?”

“Will you?” Fool her, take his price from her for lives lost and time. For deceit, for hope given false.

“Answer first.”

And do not lie, she feels far too close to herself to be still Elidibus’ voice that rolls low. Her fingers curl upon empty air, beckoning her gaze with an excuse not to look. 

“I’ve left you all alone,” she says. To no one, to both. Barely above a whisper, enough to catch on her own skin and blood. “And all that you loved, I’ve taken. Sought to make my own. For good, or for ill.”

That is not- “Why would you take more? What would satisfy you?”- what did you do?

She turns away, or tries to. Fingers bury in her nape, pulling on hair, on fragile skin, leading it back to blunted teeth and words. She can still close her eyes, keep her hands away.

“If I cannot give back to you, then at least for now I can take away that…” Sorrow. Pain. Something she could have words for, if she were the kind to try. If she were the one that had a hundred-odd years to try. “Should you want to.”

“If you cannot,” Elidibus says as certainly as if he knows the answer. He does, as certain as he knows the melody the broken chorus of creation carries, as certain as he knows of death by shattering light, by a blade to his throat. She can no more let him hold Amaurot in his hands than he can let her stop him. “How very unlike you, to admit any form of defeat.”

“It would not be your Amaurot I would raise, or this world as it was. Only a play at peace.” 

Her eyes open. Elidibus has drawn away to loom over her, eyes on hers. His hand at her neck has shifted to grasp her chin, tilt her head up with his thumb by her lips, keeping every word in order as she lets her voice meander. 

“Other shoulders to bear a burden for the night. If you would take them.”

A shiver at her back. Not Elidibus’ hold; his hand at her waist still trembles. She cannot close her eyes, wants to, wants to take that step and flinch away.

He sinks in.

-a crescendo, the relentless pounding beat of his heart of falling stars falling light-

He surrenders holding her close to the neck so he can guide one of her arms around him, pin the other to her bed. Elidibus is no stranger to taking advantages where he can find them; she gasps for air too soon, furrows nails through his shoulder so he allows her to breathe. Brief, biting. 

Sea salt and rust. Her hold curving around his chest, a leg wound around his hips. The perilous edge of a cliff-face over the sea, the anticipation of a fall. Her body rocks against his like a wave, uneven where his hands struggle to keep her steady. Cloth pooled, rasping around them, and it’s not as satisfying as skin-on-skin, as-

-voices surrounding him, the tones not Amaurot’s but not for that any less welcoming any less kind how long has it been how many have faded have twisted he hears-

Not his name but his title, rushed out in a gasp. Not prayer, not supplication, though it rings in borrowed bones sweet still. Ghostly light that leads her touch, pressed as they slink down his chest, over his stomach and corded muscle to pin him down, pin him here. Stay here, a rush of battle ended, of finally breathing, of letting go.

The drawstring is hard to undo single-handedly. With her off-hand, halting her slow grind only briefly so she can catch the loose ends of the simple knot. She tugs it loose, palms the difference of skin beginning to dampen with sweat and softened leather. The indent of his muscles leading to his groin, rising up along his stomach to catch the tense-release of holding himself above her, shallow, stuttered rolls as if he’s forgotten how to.

She gets his remaining clothes to open before Elidibus strikes, contact broken-

-black on black on silver on the night sky strewn with stars no smoke no moon no eyes on him just the soft song of aether on the wind on black-

-her black dress goes in a tangle, arms and elbows and a near-forgotten clasp at the top of her back, far too short to be the robes of Amaurot, far too light, no iridescence to it nor ultramarine chill. Don’t watch where it falls, it’s not important. Neither is the rasp of leather, fading to heated skin. Touch is, recovering both her hands is, and-

-far too many masks too many voices they drown they lift they fade in shifting black between silks returning home leaving into the night is always something the voices lilt different the aether sings different it is-

-Ardbert pushes one of her hands to tangle in his body’s hair, pull at the strands, phantom feedback she can feel oddly mirrored, made real by how Elidibus gasps. Wavers. His fingers peel off undergarments, both more and less graceful than expected. The ease at opening the clasp at her back vanishes when finding the exit wound, the single glaring scar as the one on Ardbert’s neck, both lethal but not. His, only his, Elidibus marveling at the ridges and faint, lingering aether with his fingers. At the way she cleaves to him, brings their bodies closer, rolling together from hips to waist to the way she rakes across his back. He’ll bear her marks, their marks, even if only for the night.

Another gasp, just as satisfying as the first, and it’s good that someone can be vocal about this. 

Just to be contrary, she trails down kisses as far as she can down Elidibus’ chest, listens to the soft sounds over her, behind her heart. Beating double time, faster as she’s explored in return. Heat guides her legs wider apart, curved one barely at his hip and one near to his waist, held there, made to move by spectral flame and hands alike.

-he is not the only traveler but he won’t seek he won’t can’t yield too many demands on his time his heart His heart too many wonders so many things to put to paper to words to restore to words he wants to say to music he wants to-

Stay here, somewhere close. Salt on skin, sunlight skittering synapse to synapse, need to need. No longer slow, not quite wholly skin to skin, lingering barriers and Elidibus does not get to withdraw, here.

-the instrument is soundless in his hands soundless voiceless silk cast aside-

“Please,” and her voice drifts as if through water, roughened, rolling in waves in time with the soft, near-smiling ghosts of kisses at the back of her neck, her wrists, a side of her soul Elidibus can’t hear but reacts to anyways. “Do you want to- please-”

His fingers pull out from her core, slick to the knuckle, thumb rolling over her clit to halt her prayers- hers and not other voices, not for a god but for a man- send her into more at the brief emptiness. She lets him tempt only briefly, his length sliding without once, twice before she guides him in. Lets Elidibus hilt at his pace, languid, trembling at his shoulders as he’s surrounded, arms and legs and cunt tight around his body.

There’s a moment between him being fully sheathed in her and moving. A drop, sinking into her breath, the low rumble of Ardbert’s voice. Hazy heat, the points of connection sparking. Go dark with a bruising kiss.

-aether eddies, tugs on his body his soul his His his embrace, fall closer fall into-

Elidibus keeps a steady pace, a steady beat, an arm wound about the crest of her hips to keep her body close, half-arched off the bed. The tempo increases almost escaping notice, nails strumming sounds soft over his ribs as he moves-

-sound that fades around him fades from him, cold on his shoulders something tangible, a single two-toned melody, he shivers he must be cold has to be cold and yet all he feels is light is-

She’s coiled close. Too close, on the edge, just past it but she refuses to let sensation claim her, sink her. Stubborn as always, Ardbert grins. Goads her onwards, borrowed strength, still hers, to grind just a bit closer. Chimes and broken glass over her shoulder, torn and healed in the same breath. A skipped beat in Elidibus’ pace.

-magic not his not His rust under his lips, something alive and fleeting, light briefly fading black to purple to the deep red of a mask but that’s not Him not him, his is the unraveling pulse the staccato uncoordinated brought to breathe and drown-

She bites Elidibus’ lip to scatter the dim red glow of a sigil. Close his eyes as hers are. At the very edge of a whisper, of every nerve frayed by stimulation, she says to him “Let go.”

Elidibus trembles as he finds release. Fine motions giving way to a fall, her arms guiding him down to her body in some form of rest. She has not the strength for more than feathered caresses over his back, soothing the marks left by her nails, ghosting over the spots that let his body’s halting breath find ease again. Equally languid, his arm below her draws her in, his fingers loosely curled beneath her shoulder blades. 

Held in return, she lets time pass her by. Lets herself seep again into her body by fractions, by delayed warmth. The rise and fall of breath is resisted by the weight of another body over hers. No more sighs, barely any more wandering touches. Elidibus has only one hand free, tangled in the hair at the base of her head, trying to separate the damp, fine strands. For all that Ardbert is only tangible to her, she still feels him trail his awareness along her sides, down her arms to draw his body close, finding the points where they connect in idleness. 

Something makes him halt. Ardbert catches on a breath, smothers it under her palm on Elidibus’ shoulder. Her fingers tap, pointed but unhurried, until he draws back from where he relaxes over her. Full-bodied, he braces himself on an arm to loom over her, half-lidded eyes raking over her form. She furrows her brow at the loss of contact, but makes no move. Not her own, at least; again her fingers tap on his shoulder, and beneath her touch she feels Elidibus’ low rumble as he tries to figure out balance again, untangles their legs.

Elidibus hisses, eyes blown wide. Tension sparks in her own shoulders. Words of magic scatter over her skin, too low for her to catch, but there is no attempt to fall into her soul again, no rush beyond the trailing of his hand down along her spine to the small of her back. She shifts, twining their legs again, feels Elidibus press a soft bite into her shoulder as it shivers. Laughter not her own catches at the sensation of teeth, passes smiling lips as a shuddering sigh.

“Souls embracing need not worry about remnants over us,” Elidibus says by way of explanation. Something lingers, swallowing up the mirth in memory, or the lack thereof. Her arms slide over his shoulders again, pointedly letting tension fade from her body. Just enough to encircle him, waiting, breaths made even.

He withdraws to look upon her, as much as he can with the evening gloom settling upon them, as far as he can go with his arms still around her form. Stolen blue, caught in a half-truth. It’s not just his hands that linger on her body.

When she reaches up for him, pulling him close so his forehead rests on hers, it is not just her hand that tangles in Elidibus’ hair. Her eyes fall shut-

-the symphony finishes its diminuendo, the soloist taking the stage with a stilted tune, erratic beat, too slow he cannot hear he cannot feel, he hears his own voice resonating and it is-

-she strokes his hair, slowly, giving him a beat to follow. His hands twitch, uncoordinated, and she lets go of her vantage-

-easier to go, withdraw, deaf to all but the song and his duty, not the low light of stars of a hearth of holding down a body with his own his own a stolen heart a stolen night it has been so long, he has his calling and it is.

Not this.

Elidibus catches one of her hands with his. She does not resist as he pulls it away from him, threads his fingers through the base of hers. Opening her eyes reveals a frown, one truly only his, unaware he leans into Ardbert’s ghostly hand where it lingers, strokes his hair. 

“Talk to me?” 

She feels her hand get pinned next to her head, Elidibus still holding on to it. Counting the heartbeats caught in his grip until he speaks, she waits.

Waits.

-rising music, calling him away the dark beckons, so true so cold holding steady holding distant, someone holds him down holds him holds the person he stole, puppet-strings and bone-

“Come the dawn, this will have changed nothing,” Elidibus’ voice knifes past his lips, “and yet…”

His hand slides down to her wrist. Presses down, runs his thumb along the edge of the bone. No more words come; the room chills, bereft of excess aether and fading sunlight. Now, truly, is he beginning to withdraw beyond just his body. Nonetheless, Elidibus startles when Ardbert’s touch scatters into the shadows. 

Falls back into her. She pretends she was the one to tighten her hold on him, pretends it isn’t just her heart beneath.

“It could, if each of us chose it.”

He sighs. Says nothing for a while, letting himself withdraw only back into the body he holds now. No longer entwined. The answer is one they all know far too well, one that needs not be spoken to make it true. Still his hands find rest again around her waist, her shoulders.

“Still, you have not worn out your welcome here,” she says, as if to open air. Not damp over skin.

“Is it me that is welcome, Warrior of Light?”

Despite his words, he does not move. Does not hear feel think the pause in her after his words, heartbeat stalled. Held, by a soul hers and not, Ardbert sighing before he lets his voice weigh down hers. Anything so long as they speak.

“So long as it is you,” she rasps. Knows the quiet challenge for what it is. “No one else. Nothing else.”

She shivers when Ardbert withdraws. Settles again, faint and taut with distance, as he guides her to ease Elidibus to her side, letting her breathe without the weight of a body over hers. Between the wall and her, though it should pose no issue to move her should he truly wish to leave. She only notices Elidibus has not released her hand when she lands against his body’s chest. The back of her hand pressed to the ridge of the single scar on him, the slow rhythm of his pulse. 

  
  


At some point, they lose awareness.

All that is important is that by then, it is dark.

  
  


She wakes to the distinct reminder that her window is open and Lakeland’s mornings are cold. Like Coerthas, like sleeping along the Voeburtian roads. Something not nearly warm enough is by her front, draping over her waist.

She blindly fumbles for the covers, barely out of reach. Elidibus yet sleeps, Ardbert whispers through her soul, curls against her back. As solid as he can try to be, he slows her motions. One kick to snag the covers up, around her ankle, then she tugs them up over both. If she does not open her eyes, it is not yet dawn, and they need not commit yet to harm.

She fades back into sleep.

  
  


They gather themselves apart. If she keeps an eye on Elidibus, perhaps to sate her curiosity on if he would trip or tangle himself in the armor, she makes no comment and offers no help. She gets none in return, only a gaze that fades like a mirage if she focuses upon it.

Ardbert, by contrast, is open in his attentiveness. No more tangible, but he allows himself to voice his thoughts as she tries to find the empty end of her sleeve. Presses them with strange care between silks and skin. There will be a disengage. There will be secrecy, and thus weight.

There will be hurt. She stays still, breathes, shrugs on another layer without disturbing the ghostly touch. Waits for it to fade. They will have to talk about this, later, herself and her shadow. He’s hurt, surely.

Elidibus may don Ardbert’s body as any armor, but it’s not him. And if it stings, hurts…

She finds the last of her clothes. Fixes them on, outer sashes and satchels at her hips. Heavy unlike hands.

… it wasn’t something only she chose, or only she stayed for.

She hears the heavy click of the last buckle being fit into place. She straightens up, regards Elidibus as geared for battle as any other adventurer. 

Ardbert presses a hand between her shoulder blades, leads her to her own door. Unlock the mechanism, let it swing open with but a small use of her strength. So early still, the corridors of the Pendants gawp empty.

They’ll talk later. Face it together later.

For now, she lets Elidibus leave.


End file.
